Maklu

Starting from the observation that criminal law is different in each of the member states as a result of which

(1) what constitutes an offence in one member state does not necessarily constitute an offence in another member state,
(2) even where offences are equally criminalised in all member states, the sanction levels may still vary and
(3) more generally, the position of the offences in the entirety of the justice system may vary,

the question arises to what extent those so-called offence diversities are an obstacle for EU policy making and to what extent it is feasible to overcome those obstacles.


The author underpins the need for the development of an EU offence policy, using the common criminalisation acquis as a centre piece. She argues that the common criminalisation acquis can help

(1) to ensure comparability of crime statistics,
(2) to avoid redundant double criminality testing,
(3) to overcome evidence gathering difficulties,
(4) to clarify the mandates of the EU level actors,
(5) to identify the equivalent national sentence and
(6) to scope the taking account of prior convictions.

The only condition: the development of a comprehensive, consistent and well-balanced EU offence policy.


This book contains the conclusions of her publication based doctoral thesis defended at Ghent University on 22 June 2012. It is essential reading for policy makers both at national and European level in any policy field that is linked to offences.

Wendy De Bondt holds a master’s degree in law (2006) and criminology (2007) and a PhD in law (2012). She has been a member of the Institute for International Research on Criminal Policy affiliated to the Department of Penal Law and Criminology of Ghent University since 2007.

Police forces worldwide employ a large number of police detectives who are responsible for criminal investigations. Their work depends on the investigative interviewing of suspects, victims and witnesses, including children and other vulnerable people. For years the principle of ‘learning by doing’ was used and, instead of specialised training programmes, interviewers were merely trained by observing older and more experienced colleagues.

Today however we believe that special attention to training and education is obligatory as investigative interviewing is a specialism rather than a general police skill that anyone can easily apply. Police interviewing is a very important and specialised technique that requires efficient training including a great deal of supervised practice in both educational and real-life settings.

Based on an empirical study this book explains how two newly developed training methods, individual coaching and one-day group training, can be used to optimise daily police interview practices by coaching interviewers at work. Coaching police interviewers gives them the opportunity to acquire insight into their personal interview strengths and weaknesses. Consequently developing personal awareness will help to optimise the interview practices of individual police officers by instilling a process of self-reflection and giving the interviewers insight into how to use certain techniques.

Working with interview coaches also has the advantage that police interviewers can not only reflect on their personal practice, but they also can seek advice and guidance when preparing for and conducting complex interviews. On this level coaching is more focused on the content of the case than on interpersonal capacities – which will increase job satisfaction and can prevent tunnel vision when working on a criminal case.

Our main findings are that 52% of individually coached interviewers further developed their personal interview competences significantly, and 17% of the interviewers who received only a one-day group coaching session with their peers, showed progress after seven months on four of the five main interview competences measured by the Police Interview Competency Inventory.Based on the principles of coaching, a new way of policing will be explained when describing the two newly developed training methods, a way that will change the practical organisation of criminal investigations for good and will enhance the quality of investigative interviews.

This book is unique as no previous studies have ever empirically tested the learning effect of applying competency management and coaching as we know it from the world of trade and industry to a police interview training context.

Companies in Europe and Japan are increasingly the target of private antitrust litigation. These lawsuits are being facilitated by favorable case law, legislative changes and a growing awareness of antitrust remedies in all layers of society.

This book analyzes and compares this burgeoning area of litigation in the European Union and Japan. It analyzes the legal framework for these lawsuits and takes stock of the hundreds of cases that have been brought in Japan and the EU in recent years. It also examines the novel contexts in which private litigants are invoking antitrust violations, such as in derivative suits and in actions to challenge arbitral awards. Finally, it assesses the impact of private litigation on the enforcement of antitrust law and shows how Japan’s experience can be useful for Europe and vice versa in shaping future reforms.

Simon Vande Walle is a research fellow of the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science at the University of Tokyo. He holds law degrees from Kyushu University (LL.D.), Georgetown University Law Center (LL.M.) and the University of Leuven (Master of Laws). Previously, he worked as a lawyer at Linklaters in Brussels, where he specialized in litigation and was closely involved in several major private antitrust cases.

Christopher Heath in Journal of Japanese Law:
„Bemerkenswert an der vorliegenden Arbeit sind die profunde Auseinandersetzung mit japanischen Quellen, der klare Aufbau, die gute Lesbarkeit und analytische Prägnanz. Wer ein Vorbild für die Abfassung einer Dissertation zum japanischen Recht sucht, sollte das Buch von Vande Walle zur Hand nehmen“.

One of the most controversial issues in many health care systems is health care rationing. In essence, rationing refers to the denial of - or delay in - access to scarce goods and services in health care, despite the existence of medical need. Scarcity of financial and medical resources confronts society with painful questions.

Who should decide which medicine or new treatment will be covered by social security and on which criteria such decisions must be based?

Can age, for example, be justified as a selection criterion?

Should decision-making be left to health care policymakers, hospital administrators, or rather, to treating physicians (‘bedside rationing’)?

Is there a role for individual patients?

These are difficult questions that suggest the need for transparent and democratic decision-making. In reality, however, the rationing debate occurs in a sub rosa world, based on imperfect information, distorted interpretations of effectiveness, and hidden cost concerns.

‘Rationing Health Care. Hard Choices and Unavoidable Tradeoffs’ explores these and other questions from various perspectives (medicine, philosophy, ethics, economics and law). Each of the authors’ contributions analyses the debate from a different angle in search of fair and just rationing decisions.

André den Exter and Martin Buijsen are both academics affiliated with Erasmus University Rotterdam, the Netherlands and founders of the Erasmus Observatory on Health Law.

Discussions on the possibility to attribute liability to legal persons for committing offences are far from new. The EU landscape however is scattered. Although there are obligations for the member states to introduce liability for legal persons committing offences, diversity remains as to the offences that may trigger liability, the legal persons that may be held liable, the attribution theories and mechanisms used, the type of liability, which may be either penal, administrative or civil, and the sanctions that legal persons may incur. Consistent policy making requires an identification of the main commonalities and differences in view of being able to adequately reflect them in cross-national policy initiatives. Hence, the European Commission launched a call for tender for a study on the issue, which was awarded to IRCP. The results thereof are published in this book.

Based on comparative legal analysis in the EU27, recommendations are formulated relating to the EU approximation policy (amongst others to reconsider the concept of a ‘legal person’ and to look into the need for specific ‘legal person’-offences), the functioning of mutual recognition (amongst others to extend the current mutual recognition instrumentarium), the exchange of information (amongst others to develop a criminal records policy) and procedural safeguards (amongst others to secure equivalent protection outside a criminal liability context).

In other words, a helicopter view is taken to ensure consistent EU policy making.

This book is essential reading for both EU and national policy makers as well as for researchers and practitioners involved.